Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

NWA 327: Dry run for terrorists or misunderstanding?

Once more the climate of fear is stoked by those living under its spell.

The invisble hand of empire

Mainichi Interactive - Top News: "U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a visiting Japanese politician that war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution was blocking the progress of the Japan-U.S. alliance.


Senior lawmaker Hidenao Nakagawa of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party revealed on Wednesday to Japanese reporters comments Armitage made at the Department of State.


When Nakagawa said that it was time for Japan to discuss the possibility of revising the pacifist Constitution, Armitage responded by saying that it was an issue for the Japanese people to handle.


The deputy secretary of state added in his personal opinion that Article 9, which bans the use of force in settling international disputes, was becoming an obstacle to the progress of the Tokyo-Washington alliance."

It is not enough that American economic policy is pushed upon the world through organs such as the IMF or the World Bank. Now it is defence policy and more worryingly, constitutional changes.

I am in favour of pacificistic permanent member of the UN Security Council. A veto wielding country that is constituionally constrained from deploying force outside of its borders on the UNSC. That would add a hint of deliberation to future proceedings.

Interestingly, the pacifist constitution was forced upon Japanese people by the United States occupying force after WW2. What does this tell us about the future of Iraq?

Priceless if it were not shameful

News: "But all three contenders for the post were considered unworthy of support by UKIP, including Bronislaw Geremek, a renowned scholar and a founder of the Solidarnosc who emerged from prison under the Communists to become Foreign Minister of a liberated Poland.


Mr Geremek's vision of Europe, honed at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Sorbonne was rejected by Mr Kilroy- Silk who offered an alternative view of the Continent: somewhere to go on holiday and buy clothing."

Pandering to popularism has never been so entertaining. The UK Independence Party are the epitome of Conservative: Destroy progress in order to hold on to a warm illusion of national identity based on an imperial past.

UKIP may be humorous to anyone with even a rudimentary curiosity, but they reinforce the dumbing down of the populace in order to further their own aims. This may be funny, but it is as much milking people of their votes as the the Republic/Democrat system in the US.

Time for some Deliberative Democracy. Someone. Please?

Abstraction upon Fantasy

Wired News: High-Speed Love Connection: "Were porn star Jenna Jameson, for instance, to engage in a two-way High Joy sex-toy session, the sequence of commands she used could be recorded and replayed by fans who purchase both the device and the corresponding digital 'script.'"

So here we have it. Alienation in its most insidious form.

The porn industry has made inordinate amounts of money from sexual fantasy. And fantasy is the antithesis of reality. A dreamscape in which moral, ethical and physical bounds are negated and the human mind is free to roam at its most primal.

Now with the aid of the internet attached gadgets, we can abstract the fantasy.
As our society becomes globalised and individuals become fearful of the 'other', this is the ultimate safe sex. No messy other person with which to wine, dine and final make up excuses to leave.

And if one has virtual sex with someone over the internet, is that cheating on ones partner?

What is missing in our lives that we feel the need to have our masturbation orchestrated by an unseen other.

Where is love and acceptance in this scenario? Are we so fearful of our own real lives that we cannot go out into the real world and seek a concrete, satisfying and mutual respectful relationship of our own.

Maybe if we did that we would have to reexamine the way we lead our entire lives. That late capitalism is the antithesis of a fulfilling human existence.

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"

The War on Terror has the potential to be a new Vietnam, but one fought on American soil and with the deaths of American civilians. I don't want to see anyone die for ideology, be it religious or political. It's time that "strong" leaders on both sides of the ideological fence showed humility and began to deliberate, so that all the people of the world can co-exist and lead the lives they determine for themselves.